🚀🌏︎ Andrés Paredes

U.S. CONGRESS IS LAUNCHING an investigation into Jensen Huang’s love-life—as the chip king last night published an emotional admission that he had an extramarital affair, apologizing to his wife, children, and the staff of his firm Nvidia. The affair was clearly real enough, but the shift in the story — that she was a “Chinese spy” on a “honeypot” operation — is struggling to stand up, except among the more over-stimulated elements among western politicians and journalists. “I owe my family and all of you an apology,” Mr Huang, 62, wrote in a public confession sent to his staff. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.” Both Republicans and Democrats said Congress is launching investigations. . STORY CHANGED Huang initially had a business relationship with Alice Huang Le of Megaspeed, a Singapore company that handles semiconductor trading—but it clearly turned into a full-blown affair. For several weeks, the media has been speculating about his relationship with Ms Huang, but the story changed when a 29 Oct report in the New York Times said that US officials considered her to be not just a girlfriend, but a Chinese intelligence agent. Oooo! “American officials had concluded that she was a Chinese intelligence asset, funneling information to Beijing,” the newspaper said. . PILLOW TALK This was largely meaningless, since US politicians and journalists have the unfettered imaginations of five-year-olds on speed, and consider everything from Luckin Coffee to garlic to be national security threats from China. And pillow talk is not a good venue for stealing chip secrets. “Give me a kiss, darling, and a copy of the nano-architecture plans for the next generation GB200 NVL72 chip platform.” But the next steps are coming anyway. Senator Chris Coons, Democrat for Delaware, said: “Congress will investigate and get answers.” Separately, three House Republican committee chairs asked Jensen Huang to appear for a closed-door congressional briefing on 18 November, 2026. . BAD NEWS FOR ALL SIDES This is bad news for all sides. An investigation by Congress will keep the story alive, increasing the harm to Mr Huang and Nvidia. And the timing is terrible – emerging just when the AI empire that is keeping the US stock market afloat is teetering. So why did US officials on the intelligence side stir up the story? A businessman having a girlfriend is not big news, and fearmongering over China has been at peak level in five eyes' countries since 2018. . WHO BENEFITS? Cui bono? Who benefits? The western mainstream media can add another “China bad” story to the endless number of notches on its tally stick. And US politicians can file their usual demands for more money to be diverted from welfare to warfare. But that doesn’t seem worth it. If Nvidia is damaged, that benefits China rather than the US. The US intelligence agencies would have been much smarter to tell Mr Huang that they had the details and hold that over him as a threat to keep him in line. As for the fact that some Nvidia chips do go in and out of Mainland China—well, that’s been happening for a long time, and will continue until China has developed its own super-chips. Then the story could end with a twist. . .